Journal Club

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Join us for our next Journal Club session happening on June 10 at 12pm ET/ 6pm SAST/6pm CEST.

We will be discussing the following article below:

Kashnitsky D,  Vyatchina M, Ariabinska A, Basquin P,  Kasianczuk M, Kvinikadze G,  Landeau E, Rabinciuc V, Rivera K,  Shishniashvili I, Smirnova J,  Tiuniahina N &  Simmat-Durand L.  From barriers to solutions: a qualitative study of access to HIV and TB care for forced migrants from Ukraine. BMC Health Serv Res 26, 253 (2026). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12913-025-13946-5 

Email nancy.bedingfield@ucalgary.ca for more information

Ukraine SSHIFTB
Publication

Background

This study investigates the barriers faced by individuals who fled Ukraine following the Russian invasion in accessing HIV, tuberculosis (TB), and opioid agonist treatment (OAT). It aims to understand how forced displacement intersects with healthcare access in the context of war, drawing on the frameworks of social determinants of health and transnationalism.

Methods

The research is based on in-depth interviews conducted between 2023 and 2025 as part of an international community-based project spanning six countries. Empirical data were analyzed to identify systemic, regulatory, and linguistic challenges, with particular attention to how these factors influence healthcare practices among forcibly displaced individuals.

Results

The findings show that, while in transit, refugees encounter major barriers to care, including interpreter shortages, treatment disruptions, and complex bureaucratic procedures. Community-based collaborations played a vital role in overcoming these barriers by facilitating access through advocacy, peer support, and informal system navigation. Applying the concept of cross-border patient mobility, the study highlights how individuals with intersecting vulnerabilities navigate war trauma, displacement, family separation, and social isolation.

Conclusions

The study underscores the importance of enhancing migrant-sensitive healthcare services and supporting grassroots initiatives. Addressing the healthcare needs of displaced populations requires recognizing and investing in community-driven solutions, particularly during ongoing crises and instability.

Access Comorbidities Ukraine
Publication

Background: Although the need for community-based support services as part of TB care is reaffirmed in various strategies, there are no data on the implementation progress of the recommended standardised package of community-based support services to improve TB outcomes developed by a consortium of partners in 2021.

Methods: The study describes country adaptation and initial planned implementation of the community-based packages in six countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia - Azerbaijan; the Republic of Belarus (Belarus); the Kyrgyz Republic (Kyrgyzstan); the Republic of Moldova (Moldova); Tajikistan; and Ukraine - using programme review and qualitative data.

Results: An analysis of the package adaptation and initial implementation is presented from the perspective of the country implementers with a focus on country-specific approaches and lessons learned. The analysis framework is focused on the following specific areas: 1) adaptation practices; 2) ensuring quality and supervision of the services; and 3) securing funding. Commonalities and differences in each of these areas are analysed.

Conclusion: In all countries, standardised community-based service packages were adapted and gradually introduced to support clinical TB care. Proper costing and monitoring of the services delivered at the community levels and integrating the budgeted packages into national TB programmes are recommended to ensure sustainability.

Keywords: Azerbaijan; Tajikistan; Ukraine; community engagement; the Kyrgyz Republic (Kyrgyzstan); the Republic of Belarus (Belarus); the Republic of Moldova (Moldova); tuberculosis.

Azerbaijan
Publication

Background: Sectors beyond health are essential to combatting a social disease such as tuberculosis (TB). The engagement of the community and civil society sector in Eastern Europe and Central Asia was assessed as part of a broader baseline assessment of multisectoral engagement in national TB responses.

Methods: This was a mixed-methods community-based study. Surveys, interviews, and focus groups were conducted online with TB-engaged community and civil society representatives in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Ukraine from January to June 2021. Quantitative data, analyzed using descriptive statistics, were triangulated with thematic qualitative analysis. A multisectoral accountability framework and community, rights, and gender framework for TB were used to triangulate the findings and inform data interpretations.

Results: Participants (n = 160) included leads, service providers from 74 organizations, and TB survivors. Of 53 survey respondents, most (n = 41, 77·4%) indicated strong/complete agreement to participating in TB service delivery and gender, stigma, and/or legal assessments (n = 27, 50·9%) and research processes (n = 30, 56·6%). However, few indicated inclusion in operational planning and budgeting (n = 13, 24·5%), or political and program impact of community-led monitoring (n = 16, 30·2%), and almost none (n = 2, 3.8%) confirmed dedicated budgets for their TB-related work. Inquiry into the dimensions and criteria for multisectoral actions and accountability revealed their key, yet limited, role in attending to social determinants, with wider engagement hindered by precarious funding. Several organizations balanced building partnerships with other sectors engaged in the TB response against advocacy activities. Inherent obligations toward TB-affected communities were at times overshadowed by obligations to donors and state actors. Coordinating bodies for donor funds, which were multisectoral by design, presented an opportunity to bolster accountability actions within the TB response.

Conclusions: Multisectoral engagement and accountability for TB are a laudable and necessary goal to end TB. Sustainable mechanisms to support the meaningful involvement of TB-affected communities and civil society are needed, particularly in the context of donor transitions.

Keywords: Accountability; Civil society engagement; Community perspectives; Donor relations; MAF-TB assessment; Multisectoral collaboration; Qualitative methods; Survey; Tuberculosis.

Community Engagement Mixed Methods Kazakhstan
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The GCRF Social Policy Research Network (TB-SRPN) was set up with the aim to facilitate the generation of evidence to inform public health policies to reduce the tuberculosis (TB) burden in post-Soviet countries and promote ongoing knowledge exchange among researchers, civil society activists and policy makers. Political events in Belarus and the war against Ukraine escalated by the Russian Federation in February 2022 disrupted many of the planned activities of the SPRNetwork. At the same time, we have been able to capitalise on what we managed to build prior to the war escalation and in a speedy manner support rapid assessment of the needs of people living with TB within Ukraine and facilitate the discussion of the links between the war conditions and tuberculosis in current realities.

The GCRF TB-SRPN Event “The impact of war on TB in Europe and Central Asia” will bring together researchers, civil society activities, representatives of national public health authorities and international organisations to discuss the already documented and potential impact of the war waged against Ukraine on the situation with tuberculosis in Ukraine, the neighboring region and in entire Europe.

The event's agenda includes two sessions: 

Session 1: The situation in Ukraine

Session 2: Spillovers from war: new challenges for Europe and Central Asia

The event will be held online at zoom. Working language is English, translation into Russian will be available.

Read more information about this event on their website or fill in the registration form to join the meeting.

Central Asia Ukraine Policy Political analysis
Media

In recent years, conflicts in Ethiopia, Syria, Afghanistan and Yemen have caused huge suffering. They have devastated the health and wellbeing of local populations and led to countless unnecessary deaths. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is showing the world, yet again, the abhorrent consequences of war.

As well as the direct casualties of these conflicts, yet more people will suffer illness and death due to disrupted health systems and lack of access to clean water, food, medicines or simply warmth and shelter. In these desperate conditions, control of infectious diseases breaks down. One such infectious disease is tuberculosis (TB).

Over 3 million people have fled Ukraine following Russia’s recent invasion. This follows extensive recent migrations from Syria, Afghanistan and Ethiopia, all of which have high MDR-TB prevalence. Such displacement is going to challenge public health responses.

Written for The Conversation by Tom Wingfield and Jessica Potter

Read here:
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine poses a threat to the control of drug-resistant TB in Europe and the world

COVID-19 Drug-resistant TB Russian Federation

The GCRF Tuberculosis Social Research and Policy Network is a unique multidisciplinary network of social scientists (economists, public health researchers, sociologists, epidemiologists, psychologists, criminologists), civil society activists and policy makers, which provides a platform for ongoing knowledge exchange to enable a more effective, cost-effective and sustainable response to the TB epidemic in the Post-Soviet countries.

UkraineNon-Member

Dr. Olena Nizalova is an Associate Professor (Senior Research Fellow) in Health Economics at the University of Kent, which she joined in August 2013. She received her doctoral degree at Michigan State University (USA) in 2006. Olena’s research interests are in the fields of labour and health economics, economics of aging, and policy evaluation. Her research focuses on the interplay between labour market, health and family obligations, be it the provision of informal care to elderly parents in the USA and Europe or the effect of the TB epidemics on productivity (Ukraine), or the impact of labour market outcomes on health and wellbeing. Her research has been supported by the European Commission, Wellcome Trust, MRC, UKAid, ESRC, World Bank, Global Development Network, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, ERSTE Foundation (Austria), Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies (University of Michigan), and the Global Challenge Research Fund.

UkraineContributor

GCRF Tuberculosis Social Research and Policy Network (TB-SRPN)

invites interested young scholars to apply for participation in the

2021-22 GCRF TB-SRPN Young Scholars Research Support Programme

Application deadline: December 5, 2021, 5 pm GMT.

About GCRF TB-SRPN: The GCRF Tuberculosis Social Research and Policy Network is a unique multidisciplinary network of social scientists (economists, public health researchers, sociologists, epidemiologists, psychologists, criminologists), civil society activists and policy makers, which provides a platform for ongoing knowledge exchange to enable a more effective, cost-effective and sustainable response to the TB epidemic in the region.

Program’s Goal: The GCRF Tuberculosis Social Research and Policy Network Young Scholar Research Support programme aims to strengthen research capacity in the post-Soviet countries via:

  • linking local early career researchers to the established researchers with relevant expertise from all around the world;
  • supporting them in the implementation of the policy-relevant research;
  • equipping them with tools to work in collaboration with policy makers and other stakeholders;
  • promoting adherence to the highest standards of academic integrity.

This is achieved in the process of working on a specific research paper within the duration of the program, which is 8 months.

Focus Countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan

Scope of research: Given the nature of the Network and the timeline of the program, we are looking for social research, which:

  • Uses secondary data, which has been either already collected for the purpose or is based on routinely collected administrative data sets.
  • Relies on the methodology from one or more of the social science disciplines: economics, public health, sociology, epidemiology, psychology, criminologists, etc.
  • Addresses a research question which is policy relevant either within the country in focus or across the whole region, as evidenced by the civil society and policy agenda.
  • Areas may include, but are not limited to, various social aspects of case detection and contact tracing, delayed diagnoses and treatment initiation, adherence to treatment, post-treatment rehabilitation, effectiveness of various models of TB treatment, inequalities in the provision of services, social isolation and stigma.
  • Clinical medical research will not be considered.

Eligibility criteria:

  • Applicant must be an Early Career Researcher (either currently in the last year of a doctoral program (or pursuing candidate of science degree) or be within 5 years after graduation as evidenced by the letter from the degree awarding institution or the degree certificate).
  • Applicant must be at an advanced stage of the analysis of a specific research question to which he/she is applying as evidenced by the submitted proposal.
  • Applicant must be a permanent resident of one of the following countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
  • Only one participant per country will be selected

Apply online here: http://tb-srpn.org/page21429163.html. If there are any questions, please write to Shcherbina@research.by.

Evaluation criteria for applications:

  1. Research excellence (30 points)
  2. Policy relevance of the research question in a local and/or global context (25 points)
  3. Potential for capacity development (25 points) (preference will be given to the applicants for which participation in the program can bring the highest capacity development, compared to what the applicant would have achieved without
  4. Feasibility of completion (20 points)

Application procedure:

To apply please complete the online application form and provide the following materials:

  1. Research proposal (maximum 2 pages including references, single-spaced, font size 12) should include the following information:
  • Formulation of the problem/ research question.
  • Research methodology (data and empirical approach).
  • (Potential) Practical/Policy implications.
  • Reference list.
  1. 2-page CV
  2. Transcript from the doctoral program or doctoral degree (candidate of science) certificate
  3. Two references (names, affiliation, and contact information) for the candidate who can reflect on the potential of the candidate to benefit from the Program and the merits of the research proposal.

 

Applied Research Behavioural research Cost / economic analysis Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus

Nonna Turusbekova, PhD, is a freelance consultant with more than 10 years of experience in TB and more than 20 years of experience working with key and vulnerable populations. For several years Nonna was a steering committee member of TB Europe Coalition, a network of organizations and activists in Eastern Europe & Central Asia region. Through Nonna’s recent 4-year engagement in the Global Fund’s Technical Review Panel, she is familiar with many aspects of TB (HIV and malaria) programming, specific to the Global Fund, and health and communities systems strengthening in general. She also regularly supports country coordinating mechanisms – governance bodies overseeing Global Fund grants in the recipient countries. Nonna’s current areas of focus include human rights and gender considerations in TB, HIV and malaria. Besides this she is skilled in airborne infection prevention and control, focusing on administrative measures and personal respiratory protection.

United KingdomContributor

Mission

The purpose of the initiative is to create ‘islands of elimination’ that will contribute to lowering rates of TB. The Zero TB Initiative is unique in three ways:

- It supports coalitions of local governments, businesses, and civil society.

- It uses the comprehensive Search-Treat-Prevent approach.

- It focuses TB prevention and care in households, the places where people seek care and where they work.

Bangladesh India Advocacy Applied Research

Yuliya Chorna is a PhD candidate in social anthropology, Department of Anthropology, York University and a graduate student scholar at the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research. She focuses her ethnographic research on the policy-making and resource allocation in the global TB response.

Yuliya's social work background drives her passion for social justice, advocacy for health equity and an end to stigma towards people and communities affected by TB. She has extensive work experience in the field of global health, including in senior leadership positions for not-for-profit NGOs focused on social equity and rights in the fields of TB and HIV/AIDS. In 2018-2020 she served as the executive director of the TB Europe Coalition, working to advance people-centered models of TB care, and strengthen the civil society and community role in the TB response. Since 2020, Yuliya has also worked as a consultant for the WHO Regional Office for Europe on initiatives aimed to strengthen multisectoral response to TB, and participated in the National TB Program Reviews.

Yuliya has experience in serving on regional and global taskforces and committees, such as the Civil Society Task Force on TB hosted by WHO the Global TB Program; the Developing Country NGO Delegation to the Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria; the Regional Collaborating Committee on Accelerated Response to Tuberculosis, HIV and Viral Hepatitis (RCC-THV) and the Technical Advisory Group on Tuberculosis (TAG-TB) at WHO/Europe. In 2024, she joined the TB Europe Coalition’s Board.

UkraineContributor
Report

The communities, rights, and gender (CRG) regional brief was developed as part of the multi-country program “Advancing People-Centered Quality TB Care - From the New Model of Care Towards Improving DR-TB Early Detection and Treatment Outcomes” (TB-REP 2.0), financed by The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and implemented by the Center for Health Policies and Studies (PAS Center) as the principal recipient.

Access Advocacy Georgia
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